The Book Of Curiosities Part 71

We close this chapter with an account of CENTAURS AND LAPITHae.--Under the reign of Ixion, king of Thessaly, a company of bulls which fed upon Pelion ran mad, by which means the mountain was inaccessible. They also descended into the inhabited parts, ruining the trees and fruits, and killing the larger cattle. Upon which Ixion declared that he would give a great reward to any person that would destroy these bulls. Riding on horseback was never practised before that time. But some young men that lived in a village at the foot of Pelion, had attempted successfully to train horses fit to back, and had accustomed themselves to that exercise. These youths undertook to clear the mountain of the bulls, which they effected by pursuing them on horseback, and piercing them with their arrows as they fled; but when the bulls stopped or followed them, they retired without receiving any hurt. And from hence they were called Centaurs, viz. Pierce bulls. Having received of Ixion the recompense he promised them, they became so fierce and proud, that they committed a thousand insolences in Thessaly, not sparing even Ixion himself, who dwelt in the town of Larissa. The inhabitants of the country were at that time called Lapithae, who one day invited the Centaurs to a feast which they celebrated: but the Centaurs abused their civility; for, having drunk too much, they took the Lapithites' women from them, set them on their horses, and carried them away. This violence kindled a long war between the Centaurs and the Lapithae: the Centaurs in the night came down into the plain, and laid ambushes for their enemies, and, as soon as day appeared, retired again into the mountain, with whatever they had taken. Thus, as they retired, the Lapithae saw only the hinder parts of their horses, and the men's heads; so that they seemed but as one animal, whence they believed the Centaurs had become half men and half horses, and that they were clouds, because the village where they dwelt was called Nophelus, which signified a cloud.

CHAP. Lx.x.xIV.

MISCELLANEOUS CURIOSITIES.--(_Continued._)

_Spontaneous Inflammation--Diseases peculiar to Particular Countries--Injuries from Swallowing the Stones of Fruits--Extraordinary Surgical Operation--Extraordinary Cures by Burning--Illumination by Electricity--Divisibility of Matter._

SPONTANEOUS INFLAMMATION.--A paper on this subject, which appeared in the Repertory of Arts, vol. ii. p. 425, induced the Rev. W. Tooke to publish some remarks in vol. iii. p. 95, of that work, from which the following is an extract, respecting the spontaneous inflammation of animal and vegetable substances. "One Rude, (says he,) an apothecary at Bautzen, had prepared a pyrophorus from rye-bran and alum. Not long after he had made the discovery, there broke out, in the next village of Nauslitz, a great fire, which did much mischief, and was said to have been occasioned by the treating of a sick cow in the cow-house. Mr. Rude knew that the countrymen were accustomed to lay an application of parched rye-bran to their cattle, for curing the thick neck; he knew also that alum and rye-bran, by a proper process, yielded a _pyrophorus_; and now, to try whether parched rye-bran alone would have the same effect, he roasted a quant.i.ty of it by the fire, till it had acquired the colour of roasted coffee. This roasted bran he wrapped up in a linen cloth; in a few minutes there arose a strong smoke, with a smell of burning. Soon after, the rag grew as black as tinder, and the bran, now become hot, fell through it on the ground in little b.a.l.l.s. Mr. Rude repeated the experiment, and always with the same result. Who now will doubt, that the frequency of fires in cow-houses, which in those parts are mostly wooden buildings, is occasioned by this practice, of binding roasted bran about the necks of the cattle?"

Montet relates, in the _Memoires de l'Academie de Paris_, 1748, that animal substances kindle into flame; and that he himself has been witness to the spontaneous accension of dunghills. The woollen stuff prepared at Sevennes, named Emperor's stuff, has kindled of itself, and burnt to a coal. It is usual for this to happen to woollen stuffs, when in hot summers they are laid in a heap, in a room but little aired. In June, 1781, this happened at a woolcomber's in Germany, where a heap of wool-combings, piled up in a close warehouse seldom aired, took fire of itself. This wool burnt from within outwards, and became quite a coal; though neither fire nor light had been used at the packing. In like manner cloth-workers have certified, that after they have bought wool that was become wet, and packed it close in their warehouse, this wool has burnt of itself. The spontaneous accension of various matters from the vegetable kingdom, as wet hay, corn, and madder, and at times wet meal and malt, is well known. Hemp, flax, and hemp-oil, have also often given rise to dreadful conflagrations.

In the spring of 1780, a fire was discovered on board a frigate lying in the roads off Cronstadt, which endangered the whole fleet. After the severest scrutiny, no cause of the fire was to be found; and the matter remained without explanation, but with strong surmises of some wicked incendiary.--In August, 1780, a fire broke out at the hemp magazine at St.

Petersburg, by which several hundred thousand poods (about 36lb. English) of hemp and flax were consumed. The walls of the magazine are of brick, the floors of stone, and the rafters and covering of iron; it stands alone on an island in the Neva, on which, as well as on board the ships lying in the Neva, no fire is permitted.--In St. Petersburg, in the same year, a fire was discovered in the vaulted shop of a furrier. In these shops, which are all vaults, neither fire nor candle is allowed, and the doors of them are all of iron. At length the probable cause was found to be, that the furrier, the evening before the fire, had got a roll of new cerecloth, and had left it in his vault, where it was found almost consumed.--In the night between the 20th and 21st of April, 1781, a fire was seen on board the frigate Maria, at anchor, with several other ships, in the roads off the island of Cronstadt; the fire was, however, soon extinguished, but, by the severest examination, nothing could be extorted concerning the manner in which it had arisen. The garrison was threatened with a scrutiny that should cost them dear; and while they were in this cruel suspense, the wisdom of the sovereign gave a turn to the affair, which quieted the minds of all, by pointing out the proper method to be pursued by the commissioners of inquiry, in the following order to Czernichef: "When we perceived, by the report you have delivered in of the examination into the accident that happened on board the frigate Maria, that, in the cabin where the fire broke out, there were found parcels of matting, tied together with packthread, in which the soot of burnt fir-wood had been mixed with oil, for the purpose of painting the ship's bottom, it came into our mind, that, for the fire which happened last year at the hemp-warehouses, the following cause was a.s.signed; that the fire might have proceeded from the hemp being bound up in greasy mats, or even from such mats having lain near the hemp: therefore, neglect not to guide your farther inquiries by this remark."

As, upon juridical examination as well as private inquiry, it was found that, in the ship's cabin, where the smoke appeared, there lay a bundle of matting, containing Russian lamp-black, prepared from fir-soot moistened with hemp-oil varnish, which was perceived to have sparks of fire in it at the time of the extinction, the Russian admiralty gave orders to make various experiments, to see whether a mixture of hemp-oil varnish and the forementioned Russian black, folded up in a mat and bound together, would kindle of itself. They shook 40lb. of fir-wood soot into a tub, and poured about 35lb. of hemp-oil varnish upon it; this they let stand for an hour, after which they poured off the oil. The remaining mixture they now wrapped up in a mat, and the bundle was laid close to the cabin where the midshipmen had their birth. Two officers sealed both the mat and door with their own seals, and stationed a watch of four officers, to take notice of all that pa.s.sed during the whole night; and as soon as any smoke should appear, immediately to give information to the commandant of the port. The experiment was made on the 26th of April, about eleven o'clock A. M. in presence of all the officers. Early on the 27th, about six o'clock A. M. a smoke appeared, of which the chief commandant was immediately informed: he came with speed, and, through a small hole in the door, saw the mat smoking. He dispatched a messenger to the members of the commission; but as the smoke became stronger, and fire began to appear, he found it necessary to break the seals and open the door. No sooner was the air thus admitted, than the mat began to burn with greater force, and presently it burst into a flame.

The Russian admiralty, being now fully convinced of the self-enkindling property of this composition, transmitted their experiment to the Imperial Academy of Sciences; who appointed Mr. Georgi, a very learned adjunct of the academy, to make farther experiments on the subject. Three pounds of Russian fir-black were slowly impregnated with 5lb. of hemp-oil varnish; and when the mixture had stood open five hours, it was bound up in linen.

By this process it became clotted; but some of the black remained dry.

When the bundle had lain sixteen hours in a chest, it was observed to emit a very nauseous, and rather putrid smell, not unlike that of boiling oil.

Some parts of it became warm, and steamed much; eighteen hours after the mixture was wrapt up, one place became brown, emitted smoke, and directly afterwards glowing fire appeared. The same thing happened in a second or third place; though other places were scarcely warm. The fire crept slowly around, and gave a thick, grey, stinking smoke. Mr. Georgi took the bundle out of the chest, and laid it on a stone pavement; when, on being exposed to the free air, there arose a slow burning flame, a span high, with a strong body of smoke. Not long afterwards, there appeared, here and there, several chaps, or clefts, as from a little volcano, the vapour issuing from which burst into flames. On his breaking the lump, it burst into a very violent flame, full three feet high, which soon grew less, and then went out. The smoking and glowing fire lasted six hours; and the remainder continued to glow without for two hours longer. The grey earthy ashes, when cold, weighed five and a half ounces. Mr. Tooke concludes with a case of self-accension, noticed by Mr. Hagemann, an apothecary, at Bremen. He prepared a boiled oil of _hyoscyamus_, or henbane, in the usual way, with common oil. The humidity of the herb was nearly evaporated, when he was called away by other affairs, and was obliged to leave the oil on the fire. The evaporation of the humidity was hereby carried so far, that the herb could easily be rubbed to powder. The oil had lost its green colour, and had become brownish. In this state it was laid on the straining cloth, and placed in the garden, behind the house, in the open air. In half an hour, on coming again to this place, he perceived a strong smoke there, though he thought the oil must have long been cooled: on closer inspection, he found that the smoke did not proceed from the oil, but from the herb on the straining cloth; at the same time the smell betrayed a concealed fire. He stirred the herb about, and blew into it with a bellows, whereupon it broke out into a bright flame.

DISEASES PECULIAR TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES.--The inhabitants of particular places are peculiarly subject to particular diseases, owing to their manner of living, or to the air and effluvia of the earth and waters.

Hoffman has made some curious observations on diseases of this kind. He remarks, that swellings of the throat have always been common to the inhabitants of mountainous countries: and the old Roman authors say, 'Who wonders at a swelled throat in the Alps?' The people of Switzerland, Carinthia, Stiria, the Hartz forest, Transylvania, and the inhabitants of Cronstadt, he observes, are all subject to this disease. The French are peculiarly troubled with fevers, worms, hydroceles, and sarcoceles; and all these disorders seem to be owing originally to their eating very large quant.i.ties of chestnuts. The people of Britain are affected with hoa.r.s.enesses, catarrhs, coughs, dysenteries, consumptions, and the scurvy; the women with the _fluor albus_; and children with a disease scarcely known elsewhere, which we call the rickets.

In different parts of Italy, different diseases reign. At Naples, the venereal disease is more common than in any other part of the world. At Venice, people are peculiarly subject to the bleeding piles. At Rome, tertian agues and lethargic distempers are most common; in Tuscany, the epilepsy; and in Apulia, burning fevers, pleurisies, and that sort of madness which is attributed to the bite of the tarantula, and fancied to be cured by music. In Spain, apoplexies are common, as also melancholy, hypochondriacal complaints, and bleeding piles. The Dutch are peculiarly subject to the scurvy, and to the stone in the kidneys. The people of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Pomerania, and Livonia, are all terribly afflicted with the scurvy: and it is remarkable, that in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, fevers are very common; but in Iceland, Lapland, and Finland, there is scarcely ever such a disease met with. The Russians and Tartars are afflicted with ulcers, made by the cold, of the nature of what we call chilblains, but greatly worse; and in Poland and Lithuania, there reigns a peculiar disease, called the _Plica Polonica_, so terribly painful and offensive, that scarcely any thing can be thought worse. The people of Hungary are very subject to the gout and rheumatism: they are also more infested with lice and fleas than any other people in the world; and they have a peculiar disease which they call _cremor_. The Germans, in different parts of the empire, are subject to different reigning diseases.

In Westphalia, they are peculiarly troubled with peripneumonies and the itch. In Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and other places thereabout, they are very liable to fevers of the burning kind, to bleedings at the nose, and other haemorrhages; and to the gout, inflammations, and consumptions.

In Misnia they have purple fevers; and the children are peculiarly infested with worms. In Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace, there are very few diseases; but what they have are princ.i.p.ally burning fevers and phrenzies.

Anciently, the most common diseases in Egypt were blindness, ulcers in the legs, consumptions, and the leprosy, called _elephantiasis_, which was peculiar to that country; as Pliny observes, _Egypti peculiare hoc malum elephantiasis_. At Constantinople the plague always rages; and in the West Indian islands, malignant fevers, and the most terrible colics. These diseases are called _endemic_. In general, it is observed, that the colder the country is, the fewer and the less violent are the diseases.

Schoeffer tells us, that the Laplanders know no such thing as the plague, or fevers of the burning kind; nor are they subject to half the distempers we are. They are robust and strong, and live to eighty, ninety, and many of them to more than one hundred years; and at this great age they are not feeble and decrepit, but a man of ninety is able to work or travel as well as a man of sixty with us. They are subject, however, to some diseases, more than other nations. They have often distempers of the eyes, owing to their living in smoke, or being blinded by snow. Pleurisies, inflammations of the lungs, and violent pains of the head, are also very frequently found among these hardy inhabitants of the north; and the small-pox rages with great violence. They have one general remedy against these and all other internal diseases; this is, the root of that sort of moss which they call _jerth_. They make a decoction of this root in the whey of rein-deer's milk, and drink very large doses of it warm, to keep up a breathing sweat; if they cannot get this, they use the stalks of angelica boiled in the same manner: but the keeping in a sweat, and drinking plentifully of diluting liquors, may go a great way in the cure. They cure pleurisies by this method in a very few days, and get so well through the small-pox with it, that very few die of the disease.

INJURIES FROM SWALLOWING THE STONES OF FRUITS.--The dangers arising from swallowing the stones of plums and other fruits are very great. The Philosophical Transactions give an account of a woman who suffered violent pains in her bowels for thirty years, the malady returning once in a month or less. At length, a strong purge being given her, the occasion of all these complaints was discovered to be a stone of an oval figure, of about ten drams in weight, and measuring five inches in circ.u.mference. This had caused all the violent fits of pain, which she had suffered for so many years; after this, she became perfectly well. The ball extracted looked like a stone, and felt very hard, but swam in water. On cutting it through with a knife, there was found in the centre, a plum-stone, round which several coats of this hard and tough matter had gathered.

Another instance is given in the same papers, of a man, who, dying of an incurable colic, which had tormented him many years, and baffled the effects of medicines, was opened after death; and in his bowels was found a ball similar to that above-mentioned, but somewhat larger, being six inches in circ.u.mference, and weighing an ounce and a half. In the centre of this, as of the other, there was found the stone of a common plum, and the coats were of the same nature with those of the former. These and similar instances mentioned in the same work, sufficiently shew the folly of that common opinion, that the stones of fruits are wholesome. Even cherry stones, swallowed in great quant.i.ties, have occasioned death.

EXTRAORDINARY SURGICAL OPERATION.--"The most surprising and honourable operation of surgery ever performed, was, without any contradiction, that executed by M. Richerand, by taking away a part of the ribs and of the pleura. The patient was himself a medical man, and not ignorant of the danger he ran in this operation being had recourse to; but he also knew that his disorder was otherwise incurable. He was attacked with a cancer on the internal surface of the ribs and of the pleura, which continually produced enormous fungosities, that had been in vain attempted to be repressed by the actual cautery. M. Richerand was obliged to lay the ribs bare, to saw away two, to detach them from the pleura, and to cut away all the cancerous part of that membrane.

"As soon as he had made the opening, the air rushing into the chest, occasioned the first day great suffering, and distressing shortness of breath; the surgeon could touch and see the heart through the pericardium, which was as transparent as gla.s.s, and could a.s.sure himself of the total insensibility of both. Much serous fluid flowed from the wound, as long as it remained open; but it filled up slowly by means of the adhesion of the lung with the pericardium, and the fleshy granulations that were formed in it. At length the patient got so well, that on the twenty-seventh day after the operation, he could not resist the desire of going to the Medicinal School, to see the fragments of the ribs that had been taken from him; and in three or four days afterwards he returned home, and went about his ordinary business. The success of M. Richerand is the more important, because it will authorize, in other cases, enterprises, which, according to received opinions, would appear impossible; and we shall be less afraid of penetrating into the interior of the chest. M. Richerand even hopes, that by opening the pericardium itself, and using proper injections, we may cure a disease that has. .h.i.therto always been fatal, the dropsy of that cavity."--_Thomson's Annals._

EXTRAORDINARY CURES BY BURNING.--The following case is recorded in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, by M. Homberg. A woman, of about thirty-five, became subject to a headach, which at times was so violent, that it drove her out of her senses, making her sometimes stupid and foolish, at other times raving and furious. The seat of the pain was in the forehead, and over the eyes, which were inflamed, and looked exceedingly red and sparkling; and the most violent fits of it were attended with nausea and vomiting. In the time of the fits, she could take no food; but at all others she had a very good appet.i.te. M. Homberg had in vain attempted her cure for three years, with all kinds of medicines: only opium succeeded; and that but little, all its effect being only to take off the pain for a few hours. The redness of her eyes was always the sign of an approaching fit. One night, feeling a fit coming on, she went to lie down upon the bed; but first walked up to the gla.s.s with the candle in her hand, to see how her eyes looked: in observing this, the candle set fire to her cap; and as she was alone, her head was terribly burnt before the fire could be extinguished. M. Homberg was sent for, and ordered bleeding and proper dressings: but the expected fit this night never came on; the pain of the burning wore off by degrees; and the patient found herself from that hour cured of the headach, which had never once returned in four years after; such being the time when the account was communicated.

Another case, not less remarkable, was communicated to M. Homberg by a physician at Bruges. A woman, who for several years had her legs and thighs swelled in an extraordinary manner, found some relief from rubbing them before the fire with brandy every morning and evening. One evening, the brandy she had rubbed herself with took fire, and slightly burnt her.

She applied some brandy to her burn; and in the night all the water with which the afflicted parts were swelled, was entirely discharged, and the swelling did not again return.

ILLUMINATION BY ELECTRICITY.--Professor Meinecke, of Hallchas, in Gilbert's Annals, 1819, Number 5, proposed to illuminate halls, houses, and streets, by the electric spark; and expresses his strong persuasion that one day it will afford a more perfect and less expensive light than gas-illumination, and ultimately replace it. His plan is, to arrange, what are called, in electricity, luminous tubes, gla.s.ses, &c.; i. e. insulating substances, having a series of metallic spangles at small distances from each other, along the place to be illuminated; and then, by a machine, send a current of electricity through them: sometimes also partially exhausted gla.s.ses, as the luminous receiver, conductor, &c., are used. In this way Professor Meinecke obtained from a two-feet plate machine, a constant light in his apartment equal to that of the moon, and even surpa.s.sing it; and by enclosing his system of sparks in tubes filled with rarified hydrogen gas, in which gas it is a.s.sumed that the electric spark is more than doubled in brilliancy, he thinks it will be easy to enlarge the plan to any extent.

DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER.--We may be readily convinced of the infinite divisibility of bodies, by simply walking in a garden, and inhaling the sweet incense that rises from a thousand flowers. How inconceivably small must be the odoriferous particles of a carnation, which diffuse themselves through a whole garden, and every where strike our sense of smell! If this is not sufficient, let us consider some other objects of nature; as, for instance, one of those silk threads, the work of a poor worm. Suppose this thread is three hundred and sixty feet long, it will weigh but a single grain. Again, consider into how many perceptible parts a length of three hundred and sixty feet can be divided. A single inch may be divided into six hundred parts, each as thick as a hair, and consequently be perfectly visible. Hence a single grain of silk can be divided into at least two millions five hundred and ninety-two thousand parts, each of which may be seen without the help of a microscope. And as every one of these parts may be again divided into several more millions of parts, till the division is carried beyond the reach of thought, it is evident that this progression may be infinite. The last particles, which are no longer divisible by human industry, must still have extension, and be consequently susceptible of division, though we are no longer able to effect it. If we examine the animal kingdom, we shall discover still further proofs of the infinite divisibility of matter. Pepper has been put into a gla.s.s of water, and on looking through a microscope, a mult.i.tude of animalcules were seen in the water, a thousand million times less than a grain of sand! How inconceivably minute then must be the feet, muscles, vessels, nerves, and organs of sense, in these animals! And how small their eggs and their young ones, and the fluids which circulate in them!

Here the imagination loses itself, our ideas become confused, and we are incapable of giving form to such very small particles. What still more claims our attention is, that the more we magnify, by means of gla.s.ses, the productions of nature, the more perfect and beautiful do they appear: whilst with works of art it is generally quite contrary; for when these are seen through a microscope, we find them rough, coa.r.s.e, and imperfect, though executed by the most able artists, and with the utmost care. Thus the Almighty has impressed even upon the smallest atom the stamp of his infinity. The most subtile body is as a world, in which millions of parts unite and are arranged in the most perfect order.

CHAP. Lx.x.xV.

MISCELLANEOUS CURIOSITIES.--(_Continued._)

_The Jew's Harp--Remarkable Aqueducts--Crichup Linn--Eddystone Rocks--Dismal Swamp--Curious Wine Cellar--Mint of Segovia--Remarkable Mills--Silk Mill at Derby--Portland Vase--Murdering Statue--A Curious Pulpit._

THE JEW'S HARP.--The Jew's trump, or Jew's harp, as it is often called, though now a boy's instrument, is of ancient origin, for Mr. Pennant informs us, (Tour to Scotland, p. 195,) that one made of gilt bra.s.s was found in Norway, deposited in an urn. There appears to be an allusion, in the name, to the inhabitants of Judea; and it is to be observed, that in Dodsley's old plays, vol. iv. p. 171, Quick calls the usurer, on account of his Jewish avarice, "a notable Jew's trump." In the plate, however, of Jewish musical instruments, in Calmet's Dictionary, nothing of this kind occurs; so that perhaps there is a corruption here of _jeu-trompe_, a plaything, or play-tromp, as it is now only used by boys for that purpose; or it may be a corruption of Jew's harp, from the circ.u.mstance of its being placed between the teeth when played.

REMARKABLE AQUEDUCTS.--Aqueducts are conveyances for carrying water from one place to another; made on uneven ground, to preserve the level.

Aqueducts of every kind were long ago the wonders of Rome; the vast quant.i.ty of them which they had; the prodigious expense employed in conducting waters over arcades from one place to another, at the distance of thirty, forty, sixty, and even one hundred miles, which were either continued or supplied by other labours, as by cutting mountains and piercing rocks: all this may well surprise us, as nothing like it is undertaken in our times; we dare not purchase conveniency at so dear a rate. Appius Claudius, the censor, devised and constructed the first aqueduct. His example gave the public luxury a hint to cultivate these objects; and the force of prodigious and indefatigable labour diverted the course of rivers and floods to Rome. Agrippa, in that year when he was edile, put the last hand to the magnificence of these works.

The aqueduct of the Aqua Martia, had an arch of sixteen feet in diameter.

The whole was composed of three different kinds of stone; one of them reddish, another brown, and a third of an earth colour. Above, there appeared two ca.n.a.ls, of which the highest was fed by the new waters of the Tiverone, and the lower by what they called the Claudian river. The entire edifice is seventy Roman feet high. Near this aqueduct, we have, in Father Montfaucon, the plan of another, with three ca.n.a.ls; the highest supplied by the Aqua Julia, that in the middle from Tepula, and the lowest from the Aqua Martia. The arch of the aqueduct of the Aqua Claudia is of hewn stone, very beautiful; that of the aqueduct of the Aqua Neronia is of bricks: they are each of them seventy-two Roman feet in height. The ca.n.a.l of the aqueduct which was called Aqua Appia, deserves to be mentioned for a singularity which is observed in it; for it is not, like the others, plain, nor gradual in its descent, but much narrower at the lower than the higher end. The consul Frontinus, who superintended the aqueducts under the emperor Nerva, mentions nine of them which had each 13,594 pipes of an inch in diameter. Vigerus observes, that, in the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours, Rome received 500,000 hogsheads of water. Not to mention the aqueducts of Drusus and Rhiminius, that which gives the most striking idea of Roman magnificence, is the aqueduct of Metz, of which a great number of arcades still remain. These arcades crossed the Moselle, a river which is of vast breadth at that place. The copious sources of Gorze furnished water for the representation of a sea-fight. This water was collected in a reservoir; whence it was conducted by subterraneous ca.n.a.ls formed of hewn-stone, and so s.p.a.cious, that a man could walk erect in them: it traversed the Moselle upon its superb and lofty arcades, which may still be seen at the distance of two leagues from Metz; so nicely wrought, and so finely cemented, that except those parts in the middle which have been carried away by the ice, they have resisted, and will still resist, the severest shocks of the most violent seasons. From these arcades, other aqueducts conveyed the waters to the baths, and to the place where the naval engagement was exhibited.

If we may trust Colmenarus, the aqueduct of Segovia may be compared with the most admired labours of antiquity. There still remain one hundred and fifty-nine arcades, wholly consisting of stones enormously large, and joined without mortar. These arcades, with what remains of the edifice, are one hundred and two feet high; they are formed in two ranges, one above another. The aqueduct flows through the city, and runs beneath the greatest number of houses, which are at the lower end. After these enormous structures, we may be believed when we speak of the aqueduct which Louis XIV. caused to be built near Maintenon, for carrying water from the river Bucq to Versailles: it is perhaps the greatest aqueduct now in the world, being 7000 fathoms in length, above 2560 in height, and containing no fewer than two hundred and forty-two arcades.

CRICHUP LINN.--This is a very beautiful cascade, formed by the rivulet Crichup, in Berwickshire. It falls over a precipice about eighty-five or ninety feet high, and almost perpendicular. About a half a mile below this, descends a hill of red free-stone, forming a linn, or waterfall, peculiarly romantic. The linn from top to bottom is upwards of a hundred feet, and though twenty deep, it is yet so narrow at the top, that one might easily leap across it, were it not for the tremendous prospect below, and the noise of the water running its dark course, and by its deep murmuring, affrighting the imagination. "In the time of persecution, (says the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun,) the religious flying from their persecutors found an excellent hiding-place in Crichup Linn; and there is a seat, cut out by nature in the rock, which, having been the retreat of a shoemaker in those times, has ever since borne the name of the Sutor's Seat. Nothing can be more striking than the appearance of this linn from its bottom. The darkness of the place, upon which the sun never shines; the ragged rocks rising over one's head, and seeming to meet at the top, with here and there a blasted tree bursting from the crevices; the roaring of the water, together with some degree of danger to the spectator, while he surveys the striking objects--all naturally tend to work upon the imagination. Hence many fabulous stories which are told, were once believed concerning this curious linn."

EDDYSTONE ROCKS.--This is the name of some rocks in the English Channel, so called from the variety of contrary currents in their vicinity. They are situated nearly S. S. W. from the middle of Plymouth Sound, their distance from the port is about fourteen miles, and from Rame Head, the nearest point of land, twelve and a half. They are almost in the line which joins the Start and Lizard points; and as they lie nearly in the direction of vessels coasting up and down the channel, they were very dangerous, and ships were sometimes wrecked on them, before the lighthouse was established. They are so exposed to the swells of the ocean, from all the south and west points of the compa.s.s, that the heavy seas come uncontrolled, and break on them with the utmost fury. Sometimes after a storm, when the sea in general is, to all appearance, quite smooth, and its surface unruffled by the slightest breeze, the growing swell or under current, meeting the slope of the rocks, the sea beats dreadfully upon them, and even rises above the lighthouse in a magnificent manner, overtopping it, for the moment, as with a canopy of frothy wave.

Notwithstanding this tremendous swell, Mr. Henry Winstanley, in 1696, undertook to build a lighthouse on the princ.i.p.al rock; and he completed it 1700. This ingenious mechanic was so confident of the stability of his structure, that he declared his wish to be in it during the most tremendous storm that could blow. Unfortunately he obtained his wish, for he perished in it, during the dreadful storm which destroyed it on the 27th of November, 1703. In 1709, another lighthouse was erected of wood on this rock, but on a different construction, by Mr. John Rudyard. It stood till 1755, when it was burnt. A third one, of stone, was begun by the late celebrated Mr. John Smeaton, on the 2d of April, 1757, and finished 24th of August, 1759; and has withstood the rage of all weathers ever since.

The rock which slopes towards the south-west is cut into horizontal steps; into which are dove-tailed, and united by a strong cement, Portland stone, and granite: for Mr. Smeaton discovered, that it was impossible to make use of the former entirely, as there is a marine animal that can destroy it; and that he could not use the latter solely, as the labour of working it would have been too expensive. He therefore used the one for the internal, and the other for the external part of the structure. Upon the principle of a broad base and acc.u.mulation of matter, the whole, to the height of thirty-five feet from the foundation, is a solid ma.s.s of stones engrafted into each other, and united by every kind of additional strength. The lighthouse has four rooms, one over another, and at the top a gallery and lantern. The stone floors are flat above, but concave below, and are kept from pressing against the sides of the building by a chain let into the walls. The lighthouse is nearly eighty feet high, and withstands the most violent storms, without sustaining the smallest injury. It has now stood above sixty-three years, during which time it has been often a.s.saulted by all the fury of the elements; and, in all probability, as Mr. Smeaton said, nothing but an earthquake can destroy it. The wooden part of it, however, was burnt in 1770, but renewed in 1774.

DISMAL SWAMP,--is a mora.s.s in North America, reaching from Albermarle Sound, in North Carolina, to the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, on the opposite side of the harbour to Norfolk. It is supposed to contain about two hundred and fifty square miles, or one hundred and fifty thousand acres.

Some of the interior parts of this vast swampy plain are seldom explored, being full of danger; yet several adventurous huntsmen sometimes pursue their game within its precincts, but they cannot advance far without great risk of forfeiting their lives to their temerity.

Mr. Janson, a late traveller, relates, that in one of these excursions he was often knee-deep, though, in other parts, the ground supported him firmly. In endeavouring to pa.s.s one of these fenny spots, he attempted to avail himself of a sort of bridge, formed of the body of a very large tree; when, to his surprise, he was suddenly immersed in dust up to his waist, the tree having become rotten, or probably eaten out by insects, though it retained its shape, and appearance of solidity. Wild beasts lurk in this impenetrable recess: cattle also stray there, and often become wild: hogs are turned into it by their owners, to fatten upon the acorns that fall from the oaks.

Lake Drummond is situated near the centre of the swamp, and is formed by the drainings of this immense bog. It is crowded with fish of various kinds, which, living unmolested, attain a prodigious size.